Wagner's Das Rheingold

272 Pages·1996·13.636 MB·English

by  Warren Darcy

Wagner's
Das Rheingold
WARREN DARCY
CLARENDON PRESS: OXFORD
Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure
Anna Bolena and the Artistic Maturity of Gaetano Donizetti
Philip Gossett
Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations
William Kinderman
Robert Schumann and the Study of Orchestral Composition
The Genesis of the First Symphony Op. 38
Jon W. Finson
Euryanthe and Car] Maria von Weber’s Dramaturgy of German
Opera
Michael C. Tusa
Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ Sonata
Martha Frohlich
Richard Strauss’s Elektra
Bryan Gilliam
Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure
General Editor: Lewis Lockwood, Harvard University
This book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard specification
in order to ensure its continuing availability
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Published in the United States
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© Warren Darcy 1993
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Reprinted 2002
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ISBN 0-19-816603-6
Cover illustration: As the Rhinedaughters lament their lost gold, the gods cross the rainbow
bridge to Valhalla. From Arthur Rackham’s Color Iustrations for Wagner’s Ring, originally appearing
in The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie (London: William Heinemann, 1912; and New York: Doubleday,
Page & Co., 1912).
For
Marsha
Editor’s Preface
THIS series provides a number of monographs, each dealing with a
single work by an important composer. The main focus of each book
is on the compositional process by which the work developed from
antecedent stages, so far as these can be determined from the sources.
In each case the genesis of the work is connected to an analytical
overview of the final version. Each monograph is written by a specialist,
and, apart from the general theme of the series, no artificial unifor-
mity is imposed. The individual character of both work and evidence,
as well as the author’s special critical viewpoint, dictates differences
in emphasis and treatment. Thus some studies may stress a com-
bination of sketch evidence and analysis, while others may shift the
emphasis to the position of the work within its genre and context.
Although no such series could possibly aim at being comprehensive,
it will deal with a representative body of important works by com-
posers of stature across the centuries.
Although the fundamental importance of Das Rheingold in Wagner’s
artistic development has long been clear, intensive studies of it as an
individual work, apart from its function as Prelude to the Ring as a
whole, have been few and far between. Perhaps this is owing in part
to its relative obscurity when compared to the other monumental
parts of the Ring cycle. Even for convinced Wagnerians this work
presents problems of comprehension not only for its dramatic material
but for the complexity of its musical language, which adheres more
closely than that of any later Wagner work to the precepts for a new
kind of symphonic drama that he had laid down in Opera and Drama.
Now Warren Darcy proposes a new and solidly detailed study of
the whole of Das Rheingold, based on close study of the surviving
textual and musical sources and providing an analytical overview of
each major unit of the work and of the entire opera. His approach
goes some distance towards counteracting a recent and widely in-
fluential view of Wagner, namely, that he abandoned all concern with
architectural musical form in structuring his larger works. The result
is a carefully wrought interpretation, which both analyses the work
and elucidates its compositional history. It should deepen and extend
the reader’s understanding of Das Rheingold not only as a monumental
musical structure but as a complex drama whose every word and
viii EDITOR’S PREFACE
gesture were conceived by Wagner as being co-ordinated with his
musical ideas and with the larger complex patterns into which both
text and music are developed. All this is reason enough to welcome
his work to this series.
Lewis Lockwood
Harvard University
Author's Preface
Ir has become almost de rigueur to begin a book on Wagner by
apologizing for having written it, or at least rationalizing adding to
the already voluminous Wagner bibliography. Be that as it may, the
author of a new Wagner study cannot but feel keenly aware of the
great debt he owes his predecessors; names such as Otto Strobel,
Curt von Westernhagen, Carl Dahlhaus, Robert Bailey, Deryck
Cooke, and John Deathridge loom large in this respect. Without the
ground-breaking work of these and many other scholars, this book
would never have been written.
I am greatly indebted to numerous individuals and institutions as
well. Oberlin College supported my work through several grants: a
Curriculum Development Fellowship to prepare a course on the
Ring; a Research Status Appointment which enabled me to carry out
several months of archival work in Bayreuth; a Grant-in-Aid that
underwrote a visit to the Scheide Library at Princeton University;
and another grant that offset the cost of preparing the musical exam-
ples. Dr Manfred Eger, Director of the National Archiv der Richard-
Wagner-Stiftung, granted me unlimited access to Wagner’s textual
and musical manuscripts, while his assistant, Herr Giinther Fischer,
could not have been more helpful nor more gracious. Mr William A.
Scheide allowed me to examine his portion of the Partiturerstschrift
on two separate occasions, during which I was assisted by his librarians
Ms Janet Ing and Mr William Stoneman.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to my editor Lewis Lockwood,
whose suggestions greatly improved the book’s readability, and
who convinced me of the wisdom of incorporating frequent cross-
references to the Schirmer vocal score. I would also like to thank
Bruce Phillips, who encouraged and supported this project from its
inception, as well as the anonymous Oxford readers, whose perceptive
criticism influenced the study in many subtle ways.
Other individuals who contributed in one way or another to the
genesis of this book include Jim Hepokoski, who read and com-
mented upon initial drafts of Chapters 4 and 5; Walter Frisch, who
edited the version of Chapter 6 that appeared in roth Century Music;
Allen Cadwallader, who is probably unaware of the extent to which
the analytical portions of this book were influenced by our lunchtime
x AUTHOR’S PREFACE
discussions about Schenker; Speight Jenkins, who commissioned
several articles on the Ring for the Seattle Opera’s programme book-
lets, thereby allowing me to try out several ideas which found their
way into Chapter 3; Barry Millington and Stewart Spencer, who gave
me the opportunity to publish some of my work on the Ring manu-
scripts, a process that enriched Chapter 2; and Robert Bailey and
David Lewin, who wrote grant recommendations for me. In addition,
this study was enhanced in a myriad of ways by conversations with
past and present colleagues at Oberlin, including Walter Aschaffen-
burg, Peter Spycher, and Sylvan Suskin.
Mention should also be made of the hospitality shown my wife and
myself during our five-month sojourn in Bayreuth. Those who made
us feel at home in a foreign country include our landlady, Frau
Gschwilm; our neighbours, Frau Fleissner and her daughter Martha,
who also placed their apartment at our disposal on a return visit; and
our friends Hilary and Klaus Maier.
I conclude by thanking the four people without whose love, support,
and encouragement this project would never have been conceived,
let alone brought to fruition: my parents, Gerald and Melodia Darcy;
my sister, Virginia Ludwig; and above all my wife Marsha, to whom I
owe more than words can express.
W.J.D.
Oberlin, Ohio
May 1992
Contents
Abbreviations
Structural Outline of Das Rheingold
1 Preliminaries
2 The Documentary Sources
3 The Forging of the Text
4 Analytical Positions
5 The Opera as a Whole
6 Creatio ex Nihilo: The Prelude
7 Scene One
8 First Transformation and Scene Two 127
g Second Transformation and Scene Three 161
10 Third Transformation and Scene Four 181
11 Summary and Conclusion 215
Appendix: Transcriptions from Wagner’s Complete Draft 220
Works Cited 248
Index
255